Wow! Look my favourite, eMusic, is in there twice with that magic word "FREE" attached!

Okay, I will admit that eMusic is not perfect. I agree with Ian A. that the absence of "thingness" with no sleeve notes and packaging, etc. is a drawback. In the case of eMusic, there is also the irritation that every single "world" music download seems to come up as Reggae in the Genre column of iTunes. (Yeh, it's easy to change but it implies a certain, dare I say it? racial arrogance, at least ignorance, to the thinking behind the scenes there â€” or bloody lazyness.) Plus, good as the selection can be, and it is increasingly good in areas of interest to most of us here, there's a lot missing and also a lot of dreck present. It's not like a well curated physical store. Some tracks cannot be downloaded to some territories. Occasionally, the staff writing about releases is not accurate.

However, there is quite a lot of music I thought I'd never find and now I can also afford to indulge my musical habit once again. It's cheap! And legal as far as I know, even though I fear it's not going to automatically infuse the bank accounts of many deserving musicians with funds.

And you can get a free trial to see if it works for you. What are you waiting for?

I keep telling myself that if I really like something I get from eMusic, I'll buy it in the real world â€” but so far I always save up my dollars for something else that is not on eMusic.